Because my wife and I are training a two-year old Ausiedoodle and are preparing to do so with a puppy Lhasa Apso, we have been watching many videos by Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer.” Most of what he has to say and demonstrate is weirdly familiar to me from my years in Aikido, the paradoxical […]

“Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?” That is the end of William Yeats’ poem “Lyda and the Swan.” The poem explores the Greek myth that Zeus, king of the gods, took the form of a giant swan in order to seduce or rape the […]

I have decided to add a tentative conclusion to this blog’s central post: its explanation of Graves’ and Jung’s system. Back before I retired from university, my students often asked questions that amounted to the query: if this is true, what is the big picture it offers. Here is an attempt at that: Tentative […]

Back in 2001 when I was in the United Kingdom taking a course to be an NLP Trainer, I was writing the novel Dowsing for Intelligence. a comic story about psychology and terrorism. Unfortunately, very soon after we returned from England, the 911 attack rendered terrorism very far from humorous, so I shelved the book. […]

A 2007 episode of The Big Bang Theory ends with Sheldon demonstrating his eccentric brilliance by developing a glowing goldfish. In addition to the improbability for a physicist who doesn’t even know how to wash out a beaker properly to have the expertise and equipment for genetic manipulation, there is a further problem with this […]

A few years ago, I listened to an academic lecture about regional prejudice in South Korea, particularly in connection to the 1980 protests in the city of Gwangju, which were subdued violently, further aggravating those prejudices. The entire Gwangju region underwent years of retribution, starved as well as denied jobs and education. That situation reminded […]

While rewatching the first Xmen movie this morning, I was reading Dániel Darvay’s 2014 Philobiblon article: “Chiastic Modernism: Rational Uncanniness and Uncanny Reason.” What attracted me to it was that I am teaching a course on the Bible, a book largely structured in terms of a rhetorical device called “chiasmus,” named after the Greek word […]

In Oregon, the land where scrap paper goes to die and be resurrected, I bought a used paperback of The Witch’s Dream by “Florinda Donner-Grau.” I put the name in quotation marks, because she was born Regine Margarita Thal, but under the influence of her cult leader, Carlos Castaneda, she changed almost everything about herself. […]

“When all the world was a palimpsest, it was a perfect palindrome.”–The Slow Regard of Silent Things In Molière’s classic play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the title character discovers proudly that he is able to speak prose. When I think of how many of my students have had difficulty figuring out the difference between prose and […]

While listening to a Harry Potter weekend on the Family channel, I was glancing through Katie Robison’s Chaucer Review article “Thou wolt make…thyn hed to ake”: A Post-Chaucerian Treatment for Madness in Christine de Pizan’s Chemin de long estude.” Tied up in teaching and working on articles of my own, etc., I have neglected my […]

As a dollop added to a bowl of fresh split pea soup (or chili… or tomato soup… or potato soup… or tortilla soup….)

toss a little with fresh pasta and parm

fold into a rice pilaf

serve on your chicken enchiladas, or for Taco Night!

probably more I haven’t thought of yet

or just lick it off your fingers to get the last bit out of the bowl

It’s not nearly as fat-dense as just sour cream, because of all the other goodness folded in — and no added salt or sugar removes two of the other major tripwires.

You can substitute low-fat (not fat free — significant flavor will be lost) sour cream for some portion of the regular sour cream, and knock out more the fat and calories. Experiment to get a balance that suits you and yours.

If you like extra heat, use hot rather than mild Rotel (diced tomatoes & green chilis).